From: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 20:11:55 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Filtering out Queers is OK
In-Reply-To: <v03007613ae15b757c962@[192.187.162.15]>
Message-ID: <199607200000.RAA10799@netcom11.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Ernest Hua <hua@chromatic.com> writes:

 > The same can be said of the children of the more politically
 > correct.  My opinion is that religion is a waste of time and
 > resources, and therefore, those who force their children to
 > be religious is doing precisely the same harm you allude to.

Of course they are.

 > That is strictly MY opinion.  If there are enough of me
 > around, should we be allowed to force the government to take
 > children away from their religious parents?  More mildly,
 > can the government "protect" a child from religious ideas?

 > What gives the society more rights to regulate how the child
 > shall be brought up, except the narrow interest of
 > protecting the physical safety of the child?  It is not even
 > clear that the government may force a child to accept
 > secular ideas that may violate the child's religious
 > background, even if the government has a compelling secular
 > interest in doing so.

This is the usual smokescreen the "parents rights" lobby brings
to the bargaining table.  Rather than make the debate over the
rights of the child, and what resources the state should make
available to the child to protect those rights, they make it a
contest between the parent and the state to see who gets to
violate the child's rights the most.  Since most people regard
parents as more benevolent than the state towards children, the
parents automatically win without the reasonableness of their
behavior ever coming under discussion.

So instead of arguing whether children should have access to
education, libraries, computers, and other resources in their own
right, we get the usual endless debate over whether the state or
the parent should exercise the absolute iron-fisted control
parents all seem to think is such a wonderful thing, with
anything other than state collaboration with the parents wishes
being represented as the state usurping the parental role.

Been there.  Done that.  And as the Scottish would say, "It's
Crap."

 > Yes, we would like fewer Hitler's in the future.  But should
 > we NOT let the people decide how the raise their children
 > because there is some risk of a few of them turning into
 > future Hitlers?

Again, children have a right to go to libraries, get educated,
and use telecommunications resources without interference by
EITHER the state or their parents.  As is usual, the people who
are against children having these rights try to sell everyone the
notion that the only choice is between their two handpicked and
equally unacceptable alternatives - iron-fisted state control or
iron-fisted parental control of everything children do.

We see the same rhetoric at work with things like curfew laws as
well.  The question is always phrased as "should the state or the
parents set curfews." Whereas, the real question is "Should
police or parents have the right to harrass a 17 year old who is
out in public, behaving himself, simply because it is 9 PM at
night?"

The best way to raise "Fewer Hitlers" is to have a generation of
children who lack the internalized rage produced by being walked
on like doormats by numerous authority figures while they are
growing up.  This includes both parents and representatives of
the government.

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $